Not All Foraging Courses Are Created Equal: Why a few years of teaching experience matters.
Regarding Foraging Courses...
If you type "foraging courses" into a search engine today, you will likely be flooded with results. It seems that ever since the lockdowns, a new wave of nature enthusiasts has sprung up, basket in hand, ready to teach the ways of the hedgerow.
As the market for foraging courses floods with new providers, the quality varies wildly.
While it is wonderful to see so many people reconnecting with nature, there is a distinct difference between learning from a recent enthusiast who 'learned to forage in lockdown' and learning from a teacher who has lived this life for over two decades.
If you are looking for authentic, safe, and deeply rooted foraging courses, you need to look past the flashy media on instagram and choose decades of experience and teaching quals.
Basically, beware the "Instagram Tax" ... There is a strange trend happening right now where new teachers—who often only learned to forage themselves during lockdown—are charging more than seasoned, qualified teachers who have been doing this for decades.
Why? Often, they are not necessarily great teachers with lots of knowledge; they are just better at vlogging everything they do.
Sometimes foraging courses can be expensive AND still not great, some review screenshots below show how students can be let down.
If you are looking for a safe, educational, and valuable experience, here is how to navigate the "Wild West" of foraging schools.
Your Checklist For Choosing a Foraging Course
How to Choose Your Provider Before you book, run your provider through this quick checklist to ensure you are getting quality tuition for the ticket price.
- Number of Years Teaching: Have they lived this lifestyle for real and for an extended period, or just read about it recently on lockdown ‘days out’ and started teaching?
- Qualification: Are they a qualified teacher? (Knowing a subject and teaching it are two different skills). Session planning, risk assessment, ensuring equality of access to learning matter; even in foraging teaching.
- The Content: Do they teach the law and safety? Do they explain the specific identifying features (the "why"), or just point and name? How much useable content to anecdotal stories is there?
- Does the person leading the course just prescribe pills and tinctures without doing the actual work with the plants. ie. how far is their knowledge from the actual plants underfoot? I once went on a foraging walk by a medical herbalist who had only ever dealt with bought-in herbal pills and tinctures and while still being interesting, it showed in her plant knowledge.
- Do they have options to suit your learning style? Eg bitesized vs immersive, online vs attended, public vs private.
- Cancellations - read their reviews for foraging courses in particular - do they frequently cancel, or double book? You want to know that if you make plans to attend they won't be cancelled.
- Are they legal? Many teachers offer 'samples' including alcohol, this is illegal without an alcohol license, even if 'free' as part of a paid course. Do they have food hygiene certifications and insurance to actually feed you? Do they have express landowner permission to teach from that land?
Follow Our Checklist to Ensure it's not YOU Writing Reviews Like These Below...
1. We Were Here Before It Was "Trendy" (Est. 2006)
Wild Harvest School was established in 2006. Long before "cottagecore" was a hashtag or wild garlic pesto and hawthorn berry ketchup were menu staples. We were out in all weathers, teaching people how to read the landscape.
When you book one of our foraging courses, you are not learning from someone who just discovered the joy of 'eating wild' three years ago. You are learning from someone who raised three children alone, off-grid, on the remote moors making their daily essentials from what grew around them.
Before I started teaching, I did attend walks myself and remember one particularly scary foraging course...
We set off into the woods with literally no introduction. It was clear no "recky" (reconnaissance) had been done, as the path was completely unsuitable for the group and many u-turns were made. There was no preamble about benefits, cautions, or the law. The content was mumbled and minimal: "You can eat this plant; it looks a bit like this one that you can’t eat."
At one point, I had to ask someone, "Did he say you CAN or CAN'T eat that one?"
That is not education; that is dangerous. Foraging courses need to offer more than just pointing and mumbling 'this is so and so and you can eat it... '. You need to know why you can’t eat something and the exact differentiating factors that separate a delicious snack from a trip to the hospital, where it likes to grow, lookalikes, what the chemical aspects of it are at the different parts of the plant and if these can be useful or dangerous...
Don’t be swayed by a glossy insta feed alone. At Wild Harvest, we have been established since 2006. We are not a grant-funded cic getting external funding, yet we don't inflate our prices to match a trend. We believe sustainable education should be accessible, which is why we remain more affordable than many "pop-up" schools, despite our 20+ years of experience. Our walks start at £19 per head for a group booking, via £21 for a 2.5 hour group walk to £335 for a three day catered, accommodated retreat!
Types of Foraging Courses and Learning Styles
Choose Your Learning Style: From Bitesize to Immersive We know that not everyone has the same amount of time plus there are varying learning styles. Some people want to dip a toe in; others want to throw themselves in at the deep end. That’s why we offer a range of formats.
- Bitesize Introductions (1.5 Hours): Perfect for beginners who want a taste of the basics without overwhelmed.
- Full-Day Foraging Courses: These often include cooking, preserving, or turning your foraged plants into usable items.
- Retreats (The "Deep End"): For a fully immersive experience, choose a provider that offers accommodation. At Wild Harvest, you can stay in our off-grid tipis, meaning you live and breathe the lifestyle for a few days, see our residential courses HERE
- Private vs. Open Walks: We offer set dates where you can meet like-minded people, or private bookings where you set the agenda.
- Online Learning: Can’t make it to York? We have run our online school since 2018 (again, long before the pandemic pop-ups!). Online learning involves a range of methods to suit all styles from videos, quizzes and written text all consumed in your own time.
Foraging Course - Location, Location, Location
One final note on choosing your foraging course provider. When searching online, don't just rely on the top sponsored advert. Search for "wild food walk, or foraging courses near me". Check your local press and social media groups and community listings. The Association of Foragers is the best most reputable of directories to find a foraging course near you.
However, if you are willing to travel for quality, look for a venue that offers the full package. Wild Harvest is located on the rural outskirts of York, and because we have accommodation on-site, you can turn your education into a mini-break.
The Wild Harvest School Difference
We don't mumble. We don't guess. We teach you to identify plants with confidence using a step by step process. We cover the laws, the lookalikes, and a "recky" is always done beforehand. You are taught by a qualified adult education tutor with 30 years of teaching experience and over 20 of teaching foraging courses.
Check out our reviews below below to see how it's possible to enjoy a foraging course that is both affordable AND quality.
View our Foraging Courses HERE
[> Read Our Reviews]
